


Of Smiles and Names

by christinefromsherwood



Series: Stories from the Horrid Name Bond!verse [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual!Q, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, First Time, Fluff and Humor, M/M, New Relationship, Q's Name, actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 18:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18697195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinefromsherwood/pseuds/christinefromsherwood
Summary: There's a lot of uncertainty at the start of every relationship.Like, what to tell your partner when they ask you your name, because they actually only know you by your work title, and your real name can be found in the dictionary as the example sentence foratrocity.You know, commonplace things like that...





	Of Smiles and Names

“So, what do I call you, Q?” Bond said as he dragged the calloused fingertip of his index finger along the sensitive skin on Q’s inner forearm. “What do your regular friends call you?”

_“There are some who are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them, my little Atreides.”_

Q wasn’t sure which of those his mother supposed him to be (or to grow up to be) on 16th December 1984, when she woke up from her drugged daze and proclaimed him to be Qwisatz Atreides  Zawrotny to the nurses. Nevertheless, that was one sentence he had heard repeatedly throughout his whole life.  

First, when she cleaned his red, snot-covered face that memorable first day in kindergarten. Then repeatedly, with ever increasing frequency, throughout both the elementary and comprehensive schools, until the latest time when he called her after his meeting with Mr Tanner at the age of 28 and told her, still wide-eyed with disbelief, about his new promotion.

 His mother, Helena Zawrotna, came to England pregnant and 18 and knowing just enough English to be able to understand: “Here’s the mop. You’ll be doing floors 8 through 14.” She never liked to talk about her first couple of years as an immigrant, or why she had decided to leave Poland in the first place, and so after Q found out the origins of his name (a visit to the cinema in lieu of the regular English lesson taught by the neighbour’s fourteen-year-old), he knew not to ask further.

Apparently, it hadn’t taken his mother long to graduate from Frank Herbert to Shakespeare. But then, Q supposed his own talent for languages and coding had to come from somewhere.

Now, Q had never gone by Qwisatz. (Except for a period of three weeks in secondary school, where he made the calculated decision that the MacLaughlin twins would think he was cool if he called himself by the name of the Messiah from the new TV series. They didn’t. Sarah only raised her perfectly plucked eyebrow and Kyle had laughed at him.)

Nevertheless, Q had never seriously gone by his given name. His mother called him Art, Artie or Atreides, when she was serious, (she’d called it metathesis, when he wondered), and he had learned very young to intercept his teachers and had them call him Art as well. They usually took pity on him after gaping at the call sheet for a couple of seconds. Most of his school friends never even knew that his name was not actually Arthur. And in uni and online he went by the moniker thekeyboardmaster84, thinking himself oh-so-clever (because QWERTY is similar to Qwisatz if you’re high on cheap alcohol and a successful hack).

Which brought him back to his present predicament. How could he say to the ever-confident, suave Bond, James Bond of the unstirred martinis:

_Well, after her arrival in England my Mom’s only friend was a fourteen-year-old geek, and in a fit of madness she made the nurses write Qwisatz Atreides on my birth certificate. But most of my friends call me Arthur, because I’ve been wilfully deceiving them for the entire duration of our acquaintance. However, there are some people online who call me The Keyboard Master. Now which of these would you rather call out tonight as I go down on you, because that’s what I’ll have to do if I don’t want to lose my mind after three weeks of you kissing me stupid at 2AM in the lab and then disappearing on me before the end of my bloody shift, you great big gorgeous- argh!_

“That’s classified, 007,” Q heard himself say more sharply than he had intended. The fingers on his arm stilled for a moment before resuming their movements. “Sorry.” He sighed and rubbed his face with his free hand.

“Hmmm,” Bond hummed non-committaly and drew two circles followed by a jagged line on the back of Q’s hand.

“007. Bond. James,” Q spoke up musingly after a moment of silence, his tone intentionally light. “What do you want me to call _you_?”

Bond raised his head. His face was serious, almost grave, but his blue eyes were sparkling and Q braced himself. He knew that look.

“Well… tonight you’ll be calling me your God, or Jesus-”

“James!” Q swatted at him. “That was horrible!” But he couldn’t stop his giggle from escaping. It was the combination of the smouldering tone, the awful line and the mischievous joy on James’s face. It wiped decades of his gruelling service to the Crown right of his face.

Q stroked his thumb from the sensitive skin on James’s temple to the fine lines under his eyes, wanting to caress the smile.  Objectively, Bond was a very beautiful man. An athlete’s physique, symmetrical features, striking eyes, but it was James’s smiles that Q treasured.

The lazy, victorious one, he’d give Bill Friday nights at the pub, when it became apparent that “well, look at that, I forgot my wallet with the gun in the office again, sorry, Bill, I’ll cover the bill next week.” The small, pleased one that would stretch across his face, as he walked away from M’s office after a mission and heard Eve gasp, because she discovered another envelope with a hotel-room number plate to add to her collection on her desk.  And this one. This one belonged to Q, with the downturned corners of James’s mouth and fine crinkles around those gorgeous eyes that lit up with an impish, joyful light whenever he handed in a particularly outrageous AA report along with a torso of Q’s tech. Q didn’t want to think too hard on how many pounds of damage Q-branch wrote off as natural equipment wear because of that smile.

He could only guess what the look on his face was telling Bond right now; Bond, who was used to reading a mark in a matter of seconds.

Whatever he found in Q’s face, it must have been a good thing. Because it made him raise himself on his hands, lean up and give Q a long kiss that left his lips tingling. And there was another smile on his lips, a new one that Q hadn’t had time to figure out yet.

“Bond… James,” Q’s breath caught and he stopped, no idea what he had planned to say.

Bond’s eyes softened and he craned his neck for another kiss.

His fingers slipped into Q’s hair and tugged gently, provoking another involuntary gasp. Then their lips slid together in a hot, wet caress that had Q shivering and Bond gasping out “Q-” and “Darling-” into the tender skin on his neck.

***

“You’re having me on,” James said from next to him. They were lying on the bed in Q’s bedroom. In his disbelief, he'd propped himself up on one elbow to favour Q with the full force of his incredulity.

“Nope,” Q answered with a wry smile. “That’s my name.”

“Christ…” James huffed out and his eyes sparkled again.

“I’ll have you know that when not in the throes of passion, I actually prefer ‘Q’,” Q began primly with extra crispness to his tones. “Though ‘darling’ will do as well, I suppo-“

A pillow to the face silenced the rest of his sentence and he burst out laughing.

“Oh you suppose, do you?”

This time it was Q who started the kiss, dragging James down on top of him again and tasting that wonderful new smile with his lips and tongue and fluttering fingertips.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came to me with the name as I was sipping wine and idly musing on what Q's real name might be, if it actually began with Q and was particularly horrible. 
> 
> The awfulness of this one inspired me to write a fic after a veeeeery long writing hiatus, and now it kind of makes me want to develop this into a series of one-shots from Q's, Bond's and Q and Bond's lives. 
> 
> We shall see...
> 
>  
> 
> **I'll appreciate any and all comments and feedback, guys! ;) Let me know, here or on[Tumblr](https://christinefromsherwood.tumblr.com/about) if you'd be interested to know more about the life of Qwisatz Atreides Zawrotny. **


End file.
